


Vœtta

by Punny_Puck



Series: Daemon 'Verse [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Daemons, Gen, Loki Joins the Avengers, Loki-centric, References to Animal Abuse, References to Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 16:29:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Punny_Puck/pseuds/Punny_Puck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve knocks three times on the door to Loki’s apartment.  It’s been three years since he and Tony marched into Fury’s office and demanded that Loki be treated as a coerced victim rather than the supervillain they had assumed him to be.  </p>
<p>Alternate Universe where Jotun and humans have daemons and Aesir and Chitauri do not.  Loki and his daemon were tortured into joining the invasion.  He has recovered in the intervening time and he and his daughter are beginning to live a normal life on Midgard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vœtta

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for references to torture, animal abuse and past child abuse.

Steve knocks three times on the door to Loki’s apartment.  It’s been five years since he and Tony marched into Fury’s office and demanded that Loki be treated as a coerced victim rather than the supervillain they had assumed him to be.  Fury had sighed and his vulture daemon had shifted in agitation on her perch, but he had agreed.  Loki was offered a deal:  He could offer himself up to face Asgard’s punishments or he could stay in SHIELD custody and help with the reconstruction efforts. 

Loki had remained.  The first three months he had lived in the helicarrier. He was supervised at all times.  After a while though, it seemed wasteful and redundant to keep him there. After all, he didn't seem to have any nefarious plans in the works. Tony convinced him to move into an apartment in Avengers Tower.  Tony made sure his floor was the furthest from Thor’s, because though Thor was taking sensitivity classes and daemon training, he and Loki were still a lethal combination.  This was getting better, though, now that Loki was in therapy and Sálvisa was on the mend.

Things were even more improved between the brothers after Hela came.  Steve didn’t know the details, but he gathered that after Loki’s wife died he was considered ineligible to raise her--something about him being a single man with other priorities--and she was given to foster parents.  Thor managed to convince Odin to allow Hela to live with her father now that he was living amongst heroes—and women, apparently that was very important—and trying to pay for his crimes. 

 

It is Hela who answered the door when Steve knocked.  She peeks out from behind the door shyly and waves hello. 

Steve gets down on one knee so he was at her level, while Akkeri sat with her ears up in her least threatening posture.  Hela’s age was difficult to determine between the two planets and different races, but she looked about five in human years, and had since she arrived from Asgard. 

“How are you today, Hela?” he asks softly. 

 

When Hela first came to the Tower, he had wondered whether bringing her there was a good idea.  Was it really smart to remove her from a loving foster family to a home of complete strangers?  Had she even seen Loki since her mother’s death?  Did she know about her father’s past? 

He’d waited in the common room with Loki sitting quietly beside him—he’d been officially banished from Asgard as punishment for Jotunheim—and thought all these questions.  Sálvisa had paced relentlessly as they waited for hours, it seemed. 

The questions had flown out of his mind when Hela arrived, a tiny form beside of Thor’s massive frame.  

He forgot all his doubts because there, fluttering around Hela’s head in the shape of a butterfly, was a daemon. 

Steve had heard stories of Loki’s childhood.  How people would touch Sálvisa.  Examine her and ask what she was.  He had witnessed for himself Thor’s ignorance on proper daemon etiquette, lumber around them, swiping a insect daemons when he didn't know they were there.  He could only imagine what it must have been like for a little girl alone amongst such an onslaught. 

(Thor would later tell him, under the strictest of confidences, lest Loki take his revenge, that Hela’s foster parents would lock her daemon away in a box or closet as a punishment.  They did not know, he said hastily, when Akkeri’s hackles rose, that it was cruel, or that it hurt her.  They saw the little animal as a pet or an imaginary friend made substantial by magic.  They didn’t mean for it to hurt her.)

As for her recognizing Loki, well, that was almost immediate.  The glaring lights of the Bifrost faded from her sight and she launched herself at her father, her daemon transforming into a wolf cub to pounce on Sálvisa.  Loki had gathered her up in his arms and held her close.  He was crying, but smiling too, and Hela and her daemon just snuggled up into their parent.

 

“I am very well, thank you for asking, Mr. Rogers,” Hela says softly.  Her daemon peeks out from under her shirt.  He’s in the shape of a green snake today.  He nods a polite greeting to Akkeri and retreats.

 Hela is remarkably well behaved for her age.  Her manners are impeccable, and she is obedient and respectful and has perfected the look that Loki sometimes wears.  The one that gives nothing away and Steve has learned often hides a pain too deep to express.  Steve thinks that perhaps her dread of her foster parents’ punishments had instilled such a fear that she would never set a toe out of line again.  It makes him sad and angry in a helpless way he hasn’t felt since the serum, and he is always as gentle with her as possible.  He smiles at her. 

“I’m looking for your dad.  Is he in?”

Hela nods and opens the door for him to come inside.  Loki’s apartment was decorated in soft greens and yellows with large, comfortable furniture.  The living room has a wall of windows opposite the door and it is obscured slightly by a few thin shades.  It makes the living room shady and peaceful.  Hela stops and turns in the middle of the room, between the couch and her large and well-organized toy box. 

“He is sleeping right now, but I will fetch him if you would like to wait here.”

Steve nods and Hela moves off to the hall that leads to Loki’s bedroom.  Steve isn’t surprised that Loki is sleeping in the middle of the day.  Ever since coming to Earth, Loki had been suffering from nightmares.  It was a contributing factor in removing him from the helicarrier.  They had hoped the move to more comfortable and private quarters would relieve some of the night terrors, but every so often they recurred.  Steve remembers when Hela had fallen off the swing set at a local park and Loki had looked ashen and exhausted for a week afterwards. He wonders what set Loki off this time. 

Hela returns to the living room holding Loki’s hand.  He is dressed down in sweats and a t-shirt looks rumpled from sleep.  He’s taken to wearing his hair short and modeled with gel, along with a pair of plastic glasses frames in an effort to look harmless, but at the moment his hair is as rumpled and haphazard and his glasses are nowhere to be seen.  Steve takes it as a sign of his growing comfort with the Avengers that he allows Steve to see him when he isn’t at his best. 

Loki motions for Steve to sit and does so himself, pulling Hela into his lap.  Her daemon is in the form of a wolf cub, his favorite for snuggling with Sálvisa. 

Sálvisa herself looks much better than she did three years ago.  She’s still very thin—her ribs show through her fur, as Akkeri notes—but she is not malnourished as she was when she was first liberated from the Chitauri.  Her ear is still torn, but the scars on her back have mostly faded and her walk is almost always a smooth, catty slink rather than the stilted limping motions that she had once been limited to. 

 

For the first few months, Loki and Sálvisa were always in physical contact with one another.  Even when he was digging in the rubble or magically healing some of the worst victims of the attack, she was either leaning against his leg or held in his arms, next to his chest.  Steve couldn’t blame them, he shudders to think what he would do if Akkeri was taken away for so long.  Loki and Sálvisa slowly stretched their boundaries until they could stand it not to be touching all the time.  Loki still couldn’t manage to have her more than a few feet away from him, and would reach out and touch her as often as possible, as if reassuring himself that she was still there. 

When Loki began helping the Avengers with fighting, rather than just rebuilding, that had changed.  Loki had refused to let her go into battle with him.  Steve had overheard their arguments with each other.  Loki had shouted that he wanted her safe, and Sálvisa had roared back basically the same thing.  They had finally agreed that Sálvisa would stay at home and watch over Hela, as long as she was able to watch and listen to their missions on a tv screen. 

That was how Steve learned Sálvisa could do magic as well.  A bolt of energy from Doctor Doom had brought Loki to the ground, and suddenly Sálvisa was there beside him, a bubble of gold light protecting the two of them from further attacks.  When the battle was over, Jarvis had reported to Tony that Sálvisa and Loki had teleported back already.  Steve had found Hela in the living room playing inside a golden bubble of her own and Loki unconscious on the bed in his room, Sálvisa curled on his chest. 

“He is alright,” she’d said when he opened the door.  “He is usually tougher than this, but he will be fine.”

Steve had nodded and turned to walk away, but Akkeri had put her paws on the bed to get a better look at the unconscious Loki.  “How does he stand being so far away?”

It was a question Steve had always wanted to ask, but never got the nerve to confront Loki. 

To his surprise, Sálvisa answered easily.  “Our bond was stretched by the Chitauri.  It shouldn’t hurt him, our reading says it should only hurt at the beginning when one stretches the bond, but he still hates it.  I hate it too, but I can admit the pain probably just in my mind.”

Both Steve and Akkeri had nodded in understanding and let the two of them alone. 

 

“What can I do for you, Captain?” Loki asks once he has Hela situated comfortably in his lap. 

“I was hoping I could offer you a proposition.”

Loki smiled brittly at that and held Hela closer, looking defensive.  “You can offer.”

“Well,” Steve started, feeling a bit less confident than he had a moment before, “Since you’ve been going on missions and helping us out so much lately, the team and I thought we might extend an invitation.”

Loki rubs his face impatiently and says, “Yes?”

“Well, since you’re already pretty much acting as an Avenger, we thought you might want to make it official.  Not that you have to.  But just, if you wanted.”

Loki is silent for a long time, his face in that completely blank mask that Steve hates.  He thinks perhaps he’s offended the man when Loki nods curtly. 

“I suppose that is satisfactory,” he says, shortly. 

Hela looks up at him curiously and Sálvisa reaches across the couch to nip his hand sharply.  Loki looks over at her in surprise, but she is already addressing Steve.  “What he means is we would be honored.”

Steve smiles and stands.  “Well, that’s great.  I’ll tell the team.  Just to warn you, though, I think Tony is planning a new member party.  You know how he gets.”

Loki nods silently and watches as Steve moved towards the door. 

“Well, have a great day, Loki,” he says as he leaves. 

“Thank you, Captain,” Loki says quietly, looking down at his hands. 

Steve smiles like he doesn’t realize that the words are standing in for a million other things Loki wants to say. 

“You’re always welcome, Loki.”

**Author's Note:**

> Vœtta is old Norse meaning “to hope,” and is the name of Hela’s daemon. The reason I don’t mention it up above is because I don’t think Steve knows it. I think Hela’s very protective and secretive with her daemon and she doesn’t trust almost anyone with his name.


End file.
